According to an article by Robert Pagliarini, called “Job Interview? Avoid These 6 Psychological ‘Leaks‘”, you could be making several mistakes that will sabotage your chances of a successful interview–and be completely unaware that you’re doing it. As Pagliarini puts it, “Without knowing it, you communicate your deep psychological beliefs, attitudes and weaknesses every time you open your mouth. I’ve interviewed people who looked stellar on paper, but who exposed their hidden tendencies, issues and mental roadblocks as soon as they spoke.”

Are you making one or more of the following job interview mistakes?

I recommend you read the entire article, which has potentially valuable information, but to give you an idea of what you can find there, here are (in brief) the psychological “leaks” Pagliarini mentions:

1.Fallacy of fairness

2.Filtering

3.Control fallacies

4.Always being right

5.Polarized thinking

6.Blaming

Job interview preparation is critical

However, it needs to be looked at from more than one angle and is definitely not something you can skimp on or ignore if you want to impress employers in a job interview. This holiday season might be an excellent time to give serious thought to how you interview, what kind of effort you put into preparing for job interviews, where you might have come up short with interviews in the past, and so on. Take just a few minutes (maybe an hour or two at most) away from all the festivities that are probably going on and do an honest, soul-searching assessment of your past record on job interview preparation, conduct and results. I’d almost be willing to bet you could spare at least that much time, and the payoff might be as big as a huge success on your next job interview. Wouldn’t that be well worth the effort?

Identify possible issues that could derail your job interviews

Whether or not you’re making the psychological “leak” mistakes that Pagliarini notes, you can’t lose by checking to make sure. If you have any issues you aren’t aware of or have previously avoided acknowledging, even to yourself, this is no time to dig in your heels and refuse to face reality! If you don’t trust your own opinion or instincts, try working with someone you do trust to uncover the facts you need to know in order to conduct successful job interviews–whether it’s a family member, close friend, interview coach (disclosure note: I do work with clients on interview preparation), or someone else. What you learn from this process could launch you on a job search that generates great interviews and results in achieving your ultimate employment goal–a new job or career that you will hopefully find very satisfying, maybe even exciting.